14 DAY TRIAL // When Sid Meier's Starships was first announced, it seemed like a more traditional 4X experience but focused on the planets and systems that populate a galaxy rather than the cities and continents of a world, but it will take very little time for those who get the new title to see that it offers a new experience with a focus on the fleet as the main player-controlled element.
When a new campaign is started, gamers will have one planet, fully developed (by one of the factions from Civilization: Beyond Earth, given the names of the leaders and the fact that they belong to an Affinity from that other Firaxis title), and a fleet of two ships (there's one setup choice that can add another).
For the first few turns of Sid Meier's Starships, gamers will basically do quests for other planets, trying to balance the limited resources they have and the limited strength of their ships with the need to secure the allegiance of as many neutral worlds as possible.
This is the best part of the game for me because it strongly reminds me of Star Trek, specifically The Next Generation, and the way each episode, especially in the earlier seasons, was focused on one alien race and its predicaments.
In the new Firaxis title, problems are solved with lasers and ships and that's awesome for a long-time science fiction fan who was always disappointed with the relatively limited use of firepower on the TV show.
Starships shares some ideas with Human Extinction Simulator
The tactical battles in the new Sid Meier video game are not particularly difficult, especially on the Normal difficulty that most gamers use, but they do offer plenty of depth for gamers who want to take the time to perfect their strategies and get the highest possible score.
They are similar in many ways to those seen in Human Extinction Simulator, a game which is more focused on delivering some hard challenges for gamers to solve.
But Starships is unique because it links the combat moments via the Star Trek-inspired strategies layer, which packs a sense of discovery and adventure that many space-focused titles fail to deliver.
Civilization fans might not love the new spin-off when they first meet it, but in many ways, it feels like a fresher experience than Beyond Earth was on launch.
